Q&A for How to Create a Language

New words are added to dictionaries every year. Language evolves, and can never be considered "complete," and not all words translate into existing languages. Just keep adding to your language as needed.

You can write the months down or try make a small rhyme or song to try to remember it.

Your words may be as random and as outside-of-the-box as you like. However don't get too carried away, otherwise they'll be too hard to pronounce. Remember, this is a good reason why you should test your language by using it with friends. If they or even you have trouble pronouncing most words, you might want to do some rethinking.

No, your words don't have to mean something in a different language. Remember, this is your own language you're making up, so you get to do anything you want with it! You can base it on a different language, or you can make everything up yourself.

Make a dictionary or keep a word list. This way, you can refer to it any time you need it.

You could go basic with 26, or you could end up with 32 or 20. Whatever you like, as long as it makes sense to you.

Asian characters seem almost random to us, but they are not for them. There's no such thing as too crazy, as long as it works for you.

You can try starting with a verbal alphabet. Then make symbols for all of the sounds. You can decide whether they are written from left to right, right to left, or up and down. The purpose of a writing system is to symbolize verbal speech, so your script can be as natural or as unnatural as you like.

You would have to program an alphabet and add it to the list of languages that Spellcheck will cover. However, be careful, as misspelled words may suddenly be ignored when writing normally for assignments, etc.

There are several online programs you can use to make an online dictionary, and I think these will ensure you don't double up. You do have to use the characters available on your laptop though!

Start speaking it more, and teach other people.

Yes!

Yes, but it would be difficult to communicate anything quickly and efficiently.

You can try just doodling to come up with some ideas.

It's as simple as making something up. When it comes to languages, nothing is ever set in stone. Don't overthink it.

Search for it, and if that doesn't work, make a new one. Write down as many words as you can remember, and reinvent ones that you can't. If you're worried about this happening, you could also make a second dictionary and hide it in a safe place.

You could, but most likely your language won't end up being popular. Make your words pronounceable.

This is a complex question and depends on the language. Ask someone whose mother tongue already has subjunctive and the answer is yes; ask someone whose mother tongue does not and the answer would be no. The subjunctive is so useful you working believe it! It is used to express doubt, hope, wishing and so on, therefore this tense is common in languages. Some languages make it complex to understand. It really isn't, a mood expresses the speaker's inner thoughts on a situation essentially without the need for a verb. A mood is not temporal, it doesn't define when something happens but rather how and in what manner. So, for languages in which the subjunctive is used, it remains a useful construction.

You have change its spelling so it can be pronounced like an existing language.

Grab your keyboard and type something with your eyes closed. After that, remove random letters and numbers from the typed thing. Or open a dictionary at random and choose a word or a couple of words.

A great one to use is LingoJam. It's a website that lets you create your own translator for your language. It includes a place for wordlists, common phrases, prefixes and suffixes, links to lists of common English words for reference, and more. Just make sure to put [PRIVATE] in the title of your language when editing to keep it private from other viewers on the site.

Just assign a sound to every symbol! Since you're creating the language, you can get creative with your sounds.

It depends on how often you practice it and how long it takes you to create it. It will likely take less time to become fluent than a completely new language because you learn the words as you create them, but it depends on how hard you work at it and how quickly you learn new things.

No one on Earth today speaks Latin as a native language, and by definition that qualifies it as a dead language. Many linguists say, however, that Latin lives on in the form of several modern, derivative languages (English being one of them).

You could finish it within three weeks or so.

You can't type new characters unless you create a new font.

First, come up with your language's alphabet and its proper order. You can then organize the words of your language in that order.

Try looking at drawings and other pieces of art for inspiration of squiggly lines and dots. I based my symbols on things in nature.

You don't need 4,000 syllabograms. An alternative to syllabograms is the abugida, where a consonant is represented with a symbol and a vowel is represented with a diacritic. That might be a better option for you.

It might! Spread it around and try to get people to give it a shot.